Nvidia Has Built Their Own Functioning Holodeck

10/17/17

Written By:

Anna Johansson

The space will allow them to view a photorealistic version of their ideas to facilitate a more efficient development process.

Great news for Star Trek fans! Now you can get your hands on a real-life holodeck. In the show, the Star Trek crew could enter a special room simulating real life according to a specific storyline, for example a favorite bar from back home, or an island to defeat pirates, or a crime scene to solve a mystery. In other words, it was like a modern day VR game.

Well, Nvidia wants to make this holodeck fantasy a reality for developers by introducing a photorealistic VR platform. According to an announcement at GTC Europe 2017 in Germany, this system will be called Nvidia Holodeck.

When using this platform, designers can simulate physics and develop highly detailed models all inside a collaborative virtual play place. As they work with the virtual reality options built within, designers can see their designs become reality and develop incredible products at a much faster rate.

“Virtual reality is one of the leading opportunities for design,” said Hao Ko, principal architect at Gensler. “This technology, such as NVIDIA Holodeck, allows architects to explore their designs in photorealistic fidelity and at life-like scale. Being able to ‘walk the halls' of a building that is yet to be built brings new understanding to the design choices.”

The main capabilities of the holodeck include the ability to render highly detailed models to a lifelike scale in real time so designers can see every bolt and detail to ensure accurate production.

“NVIDIA Holodeck empowers designers to bring peers, partners and customers along the design journey to explore intricate, life-like 3D worlds together and ensure that the best ideas are discovered,” said Bob Pette, vice president of Professional Visualization at NVIDIA. “It's an unparalleled environment for deploying and testing AI-based agents — and will only get better as we add more AI capabilities.”

Nvidia will likely release a new headset designed specifically for the software, but HTC Vive or Oculus Rift would likely work with the technology as well.

In the future, an organization designing self-driving cars could use the holodeck to view the machinery from all angles. They’ll have a list of potential security concerns that must be addressed, such as pedestrian crossings or machinery malfunctions.

NASA has already tested the holodeck and sung its praises. “During our design process, teams of our engineers and scientists work together to imagine an idea, plan a design, create that model, experiment and test that solution, then take time to reiterate and improve the original — all steps that are crucial to mission success at NASA,” said Frank Delgado, lead for NASA's Hybrid Reality Lab. “With Holodeck, we will be able to clearly visualize our models, easily collaborate in a physically simulated environment, and review to ensure the efficiency and safety of our designs.”

Other state-of-the-art designers like KPF have tested the prototype and expressed excitement about its impending release.

“At KPF, we use VR to enable real-world and model scale immersion of our designs,” said Cobus Bothma, senior associate principal and applied research director at KPF. “NVIDIA Holodeck is going to enable us to deliver on this potential, with amazingly accurate visuals and physics. And, it will allow us to collaborate with designers in our worldwide offices, our partners, and our clients, in real time. That's a powerful game changer for our industry.”

Nvidia executives announced that the Holodeck will be released in September 2018.

Great news for Star Trek fans! Now you can get your hands on a real-life holodeck. In the show, the Star Trek crew could enter a special room simulating real life according to a specific storyline, for example a favorite bar from back home, or an island to defeat pirates, or a crime scene to solve a mystery. In other words, it was like a modern day VR game.

Well, Nvidia wants to make this holodeck fantasy a reality for developers by introducing a photorealistic VR platform. According to an announcement at GTC Europe 2017 in Germany, this system will be called Nvidia Holodeck.

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